Canadian long-track speedskaters Isabelle Weidemann, Ivanie Blondin and Valerie Maltais gained the gold medal within the group pursuit after beating Japan in an exhilarating ultimate on Tuesday on the Beijing Olympics.
OLYMPIC CHAMPIONS
Ivanie Blondin, Valérie Maltais, and Isabelle Weidemann win #TeamCanada’s 2d gold medal of #Beijing2022 within the girls’s group pursuit
Main points on their victory: https://t.co/ITcHSWUTne percent.twitter.com/z1PdAh654O— Staff Canada (@TeamCanada) February 15, 2022
Japan’s Nana Takagi fell at the ultimate flip together with her group within the lead, permitting Canada to put up the victory in an Olympic document time of 2 mins 53.44 seconds.
“I haven’t any phrases,” Weidemann advised CBC. “It’s in order that surreal at the moment. We knew we had a robust group and we knew shall we battle nowadays, however that is simply implausible for us.”
It was once the second one gold medal and seventeenth medal total for Canada on the Video games.
It additionally was once Weidemann’s 0.33 medal in Beijing — she gained silver within the 5,000 metres and bronze within the 3,000, with the third-place end marking Canada’s first travel to the rostrum on the Video games.
Weidemann turns into the second one Canadian in historical past to win a gold, silver and bronze on the similar Iciness Olympics — becoming a member of fellow long-track speed-skater Cindy Klassen (gold, two silver, two bronze at Turin in 2006).
Japan constructed a lead early within the race, however Canada was once charging again and had the space all the way down to .32 seconds coming into the part lap.
Nana Takagi of Staff Japan is comforted via teammates after falling all through the speedskating girls’s group pursuit finals on the 2022 Iciness Olympics, Tuesday, Feb. 15, 2022, in Beijing. (Ashley Landis/AP Picture)However Takagi, skating behind the Eastern pack, misplaced her footing at the ultimate flip and crashed into the forums — giving Canada gold.
Takagi were given up and crossed the road a ways at the back of her two teammates, in the end registering a time for Japan. She was once in tears as she was once consoled via her sister, Miho Takagi, and the opposite member of the Eastern group, Ayana Sato.
It ended an eight-day gold drought for Canada — with snowboarder Max Parrot choosing up Canada’s most effective earlier Beijing win on Feb. 7 within the slopestyle. Previous Tuesday, Parrot added a bronze in giant air.
After beating the Netherlands within the semifinals in a rematch of closing yr’s Global Championship ultimate gained via the Dutch, the Canadians earned a shot in opposition to a Eastern group that gained the 2018 Pyeongchang Olympic crown with the similar lineup.
Within the semis, Canada beat a Dutch group that includes two-time Beijing gold medallist Irene Schouten (3,000, 5,000) and 1,500-metre champ Ireen Wust via 0.98 seconds.
“I believe we actually believed in our group,” Maltais mentioned. “After we crossed the road (within the semifinal) and we had been within the ultimate, I believe we had been all at other phases. I mentioned to the ladies ‘we’re on a project. We’re on a project right here.’ I believe excellent, we really feel excellent and we did a race that wasn’t highest.”
The Netherlands beat the Russians within the bronze-medal race.
Weidemann, Blondin, additionally from Ottawa, and Maltais, from Saguenay, Que., had been dominant within the group pursuit this season, profitable all 3 Global Cup races ahead of the Olympics.
Weidemann, Blondin and Josie Morrison completed fourth within the group pursuit on the 2018 Pyeongchang Olympics.
Maltais gained a silver medal within the 3,000-metre relay in short-track speedskating on the 2014 Sochi Olympics. She turns into the 0.33 athlete in historical past to win Olympic medals in lengthy and quick music.
Maltais is now an Olympic medallist in each varieties of velocity skating. She in the past gained silver within the 3000m relay in brief music at Sochi 2014. She is simply the 0.33 athlete on this planet to be an Olympic medallist in brief music and lengthy music.
It marked Canada’s 2d Olympic medal in girls’s group pursuit — the primary coming within the match’s debut when Canada gained silver in 2006.
— With information from The Related Press
